


Mabel's Magic

by EaglePursuit



Series: Another Summer's Sunny Days [17]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Dana - Freeform, F/M, Post-Gravity Falls, Returning to Gravity Falls, Short, Teenage Dipper Pines, Teenage Dipper Pines and Mabel Pines, Teenage Mabel Pines, Werewolf, Witchcraft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:54:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25613161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EaglePursuit/pseuds/EaglePursuit
Summary: Part 17 of Another Summer's Sunny Days. Mabel creates a hair sculpture with the assistance of Dipper's new ally, Dana AKA Hecate, and meets a handsome avante garde beau at the Gravity Falls Fine Arts Fair, but their date at an underground coffee shop goes awry
Relationships: Mabel Pines/Original Male Character(s)
Series: Another Summer's Sunny Days [17]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1792519
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	Mabel's Magic

**Author's Note:**

> Based on: Disney’s Gravity Falls  
> Created by: Alex Hirsch
> 
> Beta readers: my wife & PK2317  
> Art by: KID | @KIDWMA

Mabel’s Magic

Mabel tossed a sweater onto a large pile of other handmade sweaters on her bed. “No. No. No. No kitties. I need something sophisticated.” She held up another one. “Butterflies…eh.” She turned to her brother who was laying on his bed, writing. “Dipper, which of my sweaters is the most sophisticated?”

Dipper stopped writing and put his hand on his chin. “Most sophisticated? Wow, Mabel. That’s a hard one. Gosh, there are so many possibilities,” he mused with playful sarcasm.

She wadded up a sweater decorated with strawberries and threw it at him. “Oh, stop. I’m going to the Gravity Falls Fine Arts Fair with Grenda and Candy. And I want to look as artsy as possible.”

He threw the strawberries sweater back at her. “Ooooh, artsy. I thought you wanted sophisticated. Do you have that one where it looks like your head is on the body of Michelangelo's David?”

She flopped on her bed amongst the pile of sweaters in dismay. “No! Mom made me unknit it because it was ‘anatomically correct’.” She said the last two words in a nasally imitation of her mother’s voice. 

“I don’t know.” Dipper shrugged. “Maybe the one with the dolphins.” He went back to his writing. “I was able to text Hecate again. After we discussed Bill Cipher and Weirdmageddon, which she was strangely eager to talk about, she told me some more cool things about witches.”

Mabel looked up at him. “When am I going to meet this Hecate? Is she, like, some old bat like the Hand Witch?”

“Ha! No, I think you will be surprised.” He pointed to the page he was writing. “She told me that all the witches in Gravity Falls are descended from one witch. Care to take a guess who that was?”

She jumped off of her bed to look over his shoulder at his journal entry. “It’s a Northwest, isn’t it?”

Dipper showed it to her. “Yup. Clothilde Northwest, to be precise. Remember her? Apparently, the museum got it all wrong. She was a really shrewd businesswoman as well as a powerful witch, and marriage to Nathaniel was merely a matter of convenience due to attitudes towards women at that time. He was the village idiot until they set him up as the fake founder of the town. Clothilde was the one who actually made the family fortune, and probably got him the mayorship too.”

She rolled her eyes. “Well that figures.” Then she gasped. “Wait! Does that mean Pacifica is a witch too!?” She elbowed her brother in the ribs. “You have to admit, she’s pretty enchanting, Dip-dop.”

“Mabel!” He scowled sternly. “Come on! We’re just friends. And she’s not a witch. The Northwest’s male heir got Clothilde’s fortune and business sense. But their daughters all inherited Clothilde’s magic power and married into local families. They passed the craft onto their own daughters and so on. Pacifica is a daughter of the male line and her mom is from L.A. or something. Preston won her in a yachting contest.” He shuddered.

“So there’s actually a bunch of magical women running around Gravity Falls and no one knows it?” She tapped her chin thoughtfully.

Dipper closed the journal. “That’s what it sounds like. I’m sure it’s not that many though, or else they would just run the town and there wouldn’t be any need for secrecy. Probably not every woman inherits the ability.” 

Mabel’s eyes lit up. “I just had an idea! You said Hecate used some kind of magic to change her hair style, right? Do you think she could do that to me?”

Dipper frowned uncertainly. “Are you sure? She said some magic words and rubbed something into her hair. It could’ve been bat’s blood, for all I know.”

She got down on her knees. “Please, Dipper? It doesn’t hurt to ask, right?”

He sighed and reopened the journal to the page that was magically linked to Dana’s grimoire.

* * *

Mabel was sitting on a stump in the woods near the Gravity Falls Civic Center and Buffet with Dipper and Waddles when the witch arrived. 

Dipper introduced them. “Mabel, this is Gravity Falls’ new super hero, Hecate. Hecate, this is my sister, Mabel, and her pig, Waddles.” 

Dana shook her hand. “Oh my gosh, it is so great to finally meet you, Mabel.”

“Wow! You’re not a pruned up old weirdo in a cave at all.” Mabel marveled at her.

Waddles sniffed the witch curiously.

“Well, I do hang out in caves sometimes.” Dana laughed with a hint of nervousness. She glanced back and forth from one twin to the other, slightly overawed and working to keep her cool. She was wearing her new Hecate costume. She had kept the black sack dress with knee-high boots from her old costume, but covered herself with a dark velvet opera cloak with a deep hood. The upper half of her face was concealed with a porcelain-white zanni mask that sported an exaggerated brow and nose; chosen to distract observers from her visible lips and distinctive cleft chin since she had to keep her mouth uncovered to speak incantations clearly. Tendrils of wild, fiery-red hair escaped from under the hood.

She stood in front of Mabel and took a deep breath. “Okay, before we begin, there’s a few things you should know. This spell will expire on its own in only a few hours, but you don’t want it to. You need to get back to me before the time runs out so I can remove it. If it is allowed to expire on its own, it will exact a cost. I can’t tell you what that cost will be; it depends on the spell and the person. But from experience, I can tell you it will probably alter your personality temporarily. So, um… do you have any questions?”

Mabel looked up at her from the stump. “Okay, so I need to get back before midnight or I turn into a pumpkin or  _ something _ ?”

The young witch stroked her chin uneasily. “Metaphorically speaking, I guess? It’s really...a curse. I’ll be putting a curse on you, but you get a fun aspect now and the negative aspect comes later. And it can be avoided altogether by applying the counter-spell in time.” She rubbed her palms together gamely. “Are you ready to mess with the primordial forces of nature?”

“You know I am!” Mabel grinned giddily.

“Okay, now for the fun part.” Dana cracked her knuckles. “What do you want me to make? I can do virtually anything.” She pushed the velvet cloak over one shoulder to reveal her satchel and began dipping her fingers into various substances within.

“I want an ocean wave of aquamarine flecked with seafoam.” —Mabel’s hands mimicking the contours she hoped to achieve— “And I want two dolphins of gray and lilac riding the wave! It’s going to go great with my dolphin sweater.” 

Dana started by running her salve-coated fingers through Mabel’s hair, chanting low to herself.

Mabel giggled and shifted on the stump. “Oh, sorry. It tickles!”

Once Mabel’s hair was streaked with sticky fluids, Dana began waving her hands around the girl, chanting more loudly. Mabel’s hair began to move as if it had a mind of its own, warping and wefting various strands and changing colors. It slowly took the shape that Mabel had described.

Dipper watched all of this intently, observing the smallest details and memorizing them to record for posterity later. He could feel Dana’s magical power thrumming in the air to the rhythm of her chant. It made the hairs on his neck stand on end like a static charge.

Dana tapped Mabel’s forehead with one last magic phrase, then wiped her hands on her dress. “Okay I’m done. What do you think? Is it good?” she asked, eager for approval.

Mabel jumped up and examined her reflection in a compact mirror. “This is amazing! I love it! I shouldn’t waste any time. I need to get going. Thank you, Hecate!” She stowed the mirror and quickly ran in the direction of the Civic Center with Waddles in tow.

Dana pulled a smartphone out of the satchel to look at the time and yelled after her. “Be back here at 3:15 so I can safely remove the spell! Oh, I hope she heard me.” She turned to Dipper. “She heard me, right?”

“Yeah, probably. You know, I heard there’s some eye-bats nesting in the cliffs over the lake. Want to go check it out?”

Dana grinned slyly at him. “You just want to do the speed spell again. I’ll race you to the top!”

* * *

Mabel ran up the steps outside the Gravity Falls Civic Center And Buffet and saw her friends waiting for her. “Candy, Grenda, Let’s see what you got!”

“I have my violin,” Candy replied, holding her violin in its case up for Mabel to see.

“I’m wearing my Mona Lisa— Whoa! Look at your hair!” Grenda boomed her approval.

“Oh stop, you!” Mabel feigned modesty. “Your t-shirt is pretty great too.”

“But, your hair!” exclaimed Candy. “It is amazing!”

“I know.” Mabel grinned. “Come on. Let’s head inside.” She led the way, and the crowd seemed to part before her, everyone murmuring and gasping as they caught sight of her. 

Toby Determined ran up to her. “Can I take your picture for the Gravity Falls Gossiper?”

“I don’t see why not.” Mabel smiled and batted her eyes for Toby’s camera. Others onlookers had pulled out their phones and were also taking pictures or recording her as she walked through the atrium.

Candy pulled on her sleeve. “The chamber ensemble is starting soon. I will go watch.”

“Okay, have fun.” Mabel waved as she left.

“I’m going to go to the buffet,” Grenda said excitedly, already pulling away.

“Sounds good. We’ll meet back here later.” Mabel pressed on into the make-shift art gallery set up in the Civic Center’s main exhibit hall. She ignored the people who whispered and pointed at her and walked down the rows of paintings and sculptures, randomly critiquing them. “Too cubist...Too expressionist...Too pre-Raphaelite...Ugh. Too post-Raphaelite.”

She stopped in front of a brightly colored painting of kittens playing in a knitting basket. “Yum, just the right amount of Raphaelite.”

Someone walked up next to her. “It invokes decadent nostalgia for the simplicities of childhood that have been washed away by the vulgar cruelties of adolescence.”

“I know, right?” Mabel giggled and turned to face them.

It was a boy, a few years older than her. He had long, dirty-blond hair with a pink streak dyed in it. It was undercut on the sides, pulled into a bun, and held in place by a simple black rubber band. A distressed, vintage concert t-shirt stretched across his torso and revealed a glimpse of his tight abdomen between the tattered hem and the beltline of his tight jeans. “I like to appreciate it ironically.”

Mabel looked him over appreciatively then noticed a cup in his hand and gasped. “Are you drinking coffee!?”

He smirked at her as if sharing a joke. “Well, I was until I ran out two minutes ago. Now there’s nothing left but steam.” He held up the empty travel cup. “Want to grab another with me? The name’s Leaf, by the way.”

“Did you say you’re dreamy? Cuz, if you did, I’m gonna have to agree with you! I’m Mabel!”

He tipped the empty cup at her and winked. “Vintage. I dig it. Let’s go.”

Mabel beamed at the compliment and followed him as he slipped through the crowds. His suede and cork sandals clapped against the soles of his feet as he led her to a small cafe set up inside the corner of the exhibit hall. 

He scrutinized the menu posted on the wall behind the counter. “Do you have any Central or South American blends?”

“We have Peru, Honduras, and Guatemala,” the barista replied with a customer service smile.

Mabel looked over the menu, then looked over it again.

“I definitely have to do the Guatemala.” Leaf told her. Then he turned back to the barista. “Venti, please. Use the French press and don’t over-grind it. Make sure the water is 195 degrees. Oh, and make it a red eye.”

A hint of intense vexation briefly crossed the barista’s face, then she sighed and pulled a hand-turned grinder out from a cabinet.

Mabel stepped up to the counter and smiled. “I don’t know what anything on your menu means. Give me the biggest, sugariest drink you have!”

They sat at a small round table and the barista brought their drinks out. Mabel took a sip of hers and made a face of disgust. “So, Leaf. I don’t see many guys wearing a scarf in July. What’s the story?”

“Oh, this?” He touched the tasseled, olive colored cloth around his neck. “It’s a shemagh. I had a gig as a roadie for Crooked Squares when they went on a USO tour in the Mideast last winter. I was hanging out with some soldiers and we kinda bonded, you know. One of them gave it to me as a token of esteem.” He adjusted his thick, black-rimmed glasses. “What about you, Mabel? Is your hair your artform?”

“Pfft. Yeah. I like to express myself through my appearance. Plus, dolphins, right?” She giggled and added a couple additional packets of sugar to her drink.

“Definitely. We need to do everything we can to raise awareness for the plight of the world’s dolphins.” Leaf nodded sagely. “It’s easily the most impressive thing I’ve seen at the art fair. I’m enjoying it in an ironic sort of way, I suppose.”

“Aw thanks, Leaf.” Mabel laughed flirtatiously.

“So hey, I’m going to a poetry slam tonight. There’s this new guy everybody is talking about. I’m looking forward to hearing his stuff. You want to go?” Leaf asked smoothly.

She grinned. “Sure! That sounds like fun.”

“Cool. It’s at this new coffee shop downtown. It doesn’t really have a name yet. It’s in the basement under the old saw mill by the river.” He gave her the time and instructions on how to find it.

“Wow, that sounds pretty underground,” Mabel remarked.

“Yeah, bring the hair.” Leaf smirked. “The guys down there will dig it.” 

Mabel looked at her phone. “Oh my gosh, it’s 3:10! I need to go meet a friend by a stump in the woods. I’ll see you underground!” She ran with Waddles to the door of the Civic Center.

She raced towards the forest. “Ah! I need to find Hecate before my hair catches on fire or something!” She was just pushing into the undergrowth when the sculpture on her head collapsed in her face and its vivid colors drained away. She trudged unhappily the rest of the way to the stump, where the witch and her brother were waiting.

Dana examined the uncoiffed hair with an apologetic grimace. “There’s not much I can do about it, Mabel. I’m so sorry!” Her voice changed to a more pragmatic tone. “You should probably wash it though. It still has particles of newt’s eye in it.”

“Am I cursed?” Mabel sobbed.

The witch cringed remorsefully. “Yes, but I can’t really tell what the effects of the curse are. Maybe someone who knows you better could tell.” She turned to Dipper. “Keep a close eye on her. If she acts strangely, just stay with her till it wears off.”

“I won’t let her out of my sight,” he vowed.

* * *

Mabel had texted Grenda and Candy to let them know she was alright, and they came to see her after they left the art fair. They sat on the couch on the porch together, relating their experiences.

“Oh my goodness. You are going on a date with Leaf Summers,” Candy squealed.

“He’s so dreamy!” Grenda agreed in her bassy voice.

“He backpacked across Tibet last summer.” Candy clutched her hands to her chest.

Grenda added. “The year before that he followed Seriously Depressed on tour.” 

“He gave a TED Talk on saving endangered wolves. He’s so caring,” Candy swooned. Her phone chimed. “Sorry. That’s my mother. I have to go. It’s time for violin lessons.”

“Yeah, I better go home too,” said Grenda. “The ice cream truck is going to drive by soon.”

Mabel said goodbye to them and wandered inside. Dipper was watching Duck-tective reruns, so Mabel sat to watch with him. It was an episode where Duck-tective deduced that the constable had committed random acts of vandalism while sleep-walking, one of Mabel’s favorites. But she just couldn’t get into it.

“Are you feeling okay?” Dipper looked over at her with concern when he saw she wasn’t laughing.

Mabel sighed. “I’m just tired, I guess. I’ll go get a drink of water and lay down.” She walked towards the kitchen when she noticed the door to the office was open and a stack of documents was sitting on Soos’s desk.

She walked into the cluttered room. The pile of papers were quarterly tax forms. “Huh,” she said to herself. She began to walk away then stopped. She suddenly felt a strong compulsion and sat down at the desk.

A few hours later Dipper went upstairs to check on her. Waddles was laying on her bed, but she wasn’t. He checked the bathroom and the kitchen before finding her in the office. “What are you doing in here, Mabel?”

She calmly showed him a nearly completed stack of forms. “Oh, just filling out these taxes. It looked like Soos was putting it off.”

Dipper rubbed his cheek with his hand. “Oh boy. I think we found the curse.” He pulled a blank piece of paper out of the clone-copier. “Here, Mabel. Quick, draw a kitty.”

Mabel stared at the piece of paper with growing concern. “I can’t think of how to start.”

“Don’t worry. Hecate said it would wear off eventually.” Dipper put his hand on her shoulder to reassure her.

Mabel noticed a clock on the wall and jumped up. “Oh my gosh! I need her to redo my hairdo for my date tonight.”

“I’ll send her a message.” Dipper pulled Journal 3 and a pen out of his pocket.

Dipper:

Mabel has a date with some guy from the art fair. 

Can you do her hair again?

Hecate:

Sorry. :-( No can do.

I’m dealing with multiple gremloblins at the mayor’s residence

Dipper:

Do you need help?

Hecate:

You should stay with her. I can handle this.

“Sorry, Mabel. Hecate is too busy right now.” He told her the disappointing news.

“Well, I’m creatively deficient. Who else can do it?” Mabel asked bleakly. Then she looked at her brother with hope-filled eyes.

“Uh oh.” Dipper gulped.

A few minutes later, Mabel sat at the kitchen table with a towel over her shoulders. Her box of art supplies was open on the table and various craft components were scattered about. Dipper held up some pipe cleaners. “I think if I make a skeleton-frame with these things and coat your hair with glue mixed with food coloring, I bet it will keep its shape. Then I’ll just add some paint and glitter.”

She held up her hand despairingly. “It’s no use, Dipper. It won’t be magical like when Hecate did it. It will just look like some little kid’s dumb art project on my head. I guess I’ll just skip the poetry slam. They won’t think I’m cool and artsy without my hair sculpture.”

Dipper frowned at her. “Hold on, Mabel.” He ran upstairs and a moment later dropped one of her scrapbooks on the table in front of her. “Look at this. This is artsy. You are a creative person. You don’t need some avante garde hairdo to prove anything. If anyone asks, just tell them it got itchy or something.”

“I guess,” Mabel mumbled.

Dipper persisted. “No! It’s true! Remember when you carved the exact likeness of Grunkle Stan in wax? And who else makes twenty sweaters a week outside of a Malaysian sweatshop?”

Mabel smiled. “You’re right! I don’t need to fake it. If they can’t handle the real Mabel, they’re closed-minded jerks!”

Dipper took a deep breath. “There’s just one problem. You’re still under the effect of the curse, so I should go with you.” He bit his lower lip contemplatively. “I tell you what; you do your date thing with Leaf and I’ll just sit in the corner of the coffee shop and work on the journal.”

* * *

The abandoned lumber mill was at the edge of the downtown district where it bordered on the river. The Northwests had built a new mill closer to the logging camps a decade previous and the area around the old one had fallen into an economic slump. It was just starting to slowly experience revitalization with trendy shops cropping up in otherwise dilapidated old industrial buildings. 

Mabel walked through a chain-link gate set up around the mill as the sun sank to the horizon and found a set of concrete steps on the outside of the building leading into the basement. At the bottom was a battered steel door. Mabel could hear faint sounds of music pulsing through it. She pulled it open and stepped inside.

She was hit by the strong aroma of coffee and the sounds of badly played newgrass music. The former was wafting from a bar set up in the corner which appeared to have been made from reclaimed wood from the mill, while the latter was being produced by a young man with a fulsome beard, singing and playing an electric guitar on a small stage.

Two of the walls were the old fieldstone foundations of the building with tiny windows set at the top, letting in the last golden rays of the day. Mabel spotted Leaf among the handful of patrons, all attired in a similar rigidly nonconformist way. He sat at one of a smattering of tables, reclaimed wood again, which were arranged around the stage. She pulled up a chair and sat at his table.

Leaf glanced at her then did a double-take. “Oh, hey Mabel. I almost didn’t recognize you without your art piece. I thought you were going to wear it tonight.”

Mabel rolled her eyes nonchalantly. “Oh, I was going to, but it kind of fell apart.”

Leaf blew it off. “Oh well. That’s too bad. I was just telling Jake about you.” He turned and waved at the baristo. “Hey, Jake. This is the girl I was telling you about, with the dolphins.”

Jake set down a mug he was cleaning and waved at her.

Mabel sighed with relief. It was going better than she hoped.

Dipper opened the steel door and stepped inside. He glanced around the room, eyes resting on Mabel for a moment, then settled in at a table near the entrance. He pulled Journal 3 and a pencil out of his pocket and started sketching Dana’s new Hecate costume from memory.

“So when is the poetry bang?” Mabel asked Leaf. “Is it after this guy?”

He raised his eyebrows. “What? Oh, right, poetry slam. It is this guy. He’s uh...gonna do his poetry after this.”

Mabel sat with Leaf and listened to the man on stage play his guitar and sing. Without her creativity, Mabel’s analytical abilities were heightened. She could make out every technical mistake he made in the song. At the end of his set she leaned over to Leaf and whispered, “He’s not actually very good at this, is he?”

Leaf suppressed a smile and nodded. “Yeah, you kind of have to appreciate it ironically.”

Mabel looked at him quizzically. “You’ve said that a few times now. What do you mean by ‘appreciate ironically’?”

He looked back at her with an eyebrow arched in amusement. “Oh, you know. It’s like, ‘it’s so bad that you laugh at the magnitude of how bad it is’.”

Mabel furrowed her forehead indignantly. “I don’t think anyone can truly enjoy art without appreciating it sincerely.”

Leaf laughed at her derisively. “Oh, sincerity! If you love something with sincerity and it becomes bad, it hurts you. With irony you can never get hurt.”

Mabel suddenly felt sorry for him. “Leaf, if you can’t truly invest your love in something, it can never make you happy. It’s hollow.” Then she sniffed and lowered her voice. “I guess when you said you liked my hair sculpture ironically, that you never really liked it at all.”

He glanced up at the window then sneered. “Nah, Mabel. It was so silly that when I saw it I had to hold myself to keep from laughing.”

Mabel was aghast. “So when you invited me here, it wasn’t to share my art with your friends. You just wanted everyone to laugh at me!”

Leaf eyed her vulgarly. He lowered the tone of his voice to a snarl. “Well, that, and we’re going to eat you, girl.” He stood up suddenly, knocking over his chair. He arched his back and let out a primal scream as his limbs began to change proportion. His sandals broke as his feet stretched and his heels lifted off the floor. Gray fur began to sprout all over his face and body while he grew a bestial snout with vicious fangs. The pink streak that had been dyed in his dirty blond hair remained in the werewolf’s fur.

Mabel took in the horrific scene. Jake, the guitar player and two other patrons were undergoing similar metamorphoses. The few normal human patrons were struggling towards the door in a panicky mass. She looked at the tiny windows along the outer wall. The last warm rays of the sun had been replaced with pallid moonlight.

“Mabel!” Dipper yelled and threw her the grappling hook.

She shot it through one of the small windows and pulled herself up to it as the werewolves spun around to intercept her. She kicked out the rest of the glass and squirmed through the small opening as several of the vicious creatures leaped up, leaving scratches in the fieldstone walls.

She scrambled to her feet outside as several human hipsters fled up the basement steps with their vintage clothing more distressed than usual. Dipper slammed the steel door shut and blocked it with his shoulder. The back of his vest was shredded. “Mabel, find something to prop against the door!”

It wasn’t difficult to find an adequate piece of lumber in the old mill’s yard. She located a relatively solid four by four and tossed it down to Dipper. Dipper set one end against the door and the other against the opposite wall of the narrow concrete stairway.

The werewolves threw themselves at the steel door. It slowly began to buckle under the assault.

Dipper pulled out Journal 1 and flipped through it. “Their weakness is silver bullets. I don’t suppose you have any of those handy?”

“What about other things made of silver?” They ran towards the chain-link gate.

He shrugged. “I don’t see why it  _ has _ to be bullets, I guess. But where are we going to find silver just laying around?”

“I have an idea.” Mabel grinned and picked up another heavy piece of wood. 

Dipper raised his eyebrows appraisingly as they slipped out of the millyard and into the street. “I think the curse is wearing off.”

* * *

Mabel chucked the board through the plate glass window of B. Laundy’s Diamonds, setting off a not-at-all-silent alarm. The shrill ringing was juxtaposed against the yipping and baying of the wolfpack on their scent that was only a few blocks behind them and getting closer.

The twins scrambled through the broken glass and into the shop. Mabel picked up the board again and smashed the display cases open. Dipper ignored the more expensive gold and gems, instead scooping up two fistfuls of silver necklaces and winding them tightly around his knuckles. Mabel grabbed a pair of silver hatpins from a mannequin head set up on the counter just in time for a pair of werewolves to hurtle through the broken window. 

One werewolf had a pink streak in its fur on top of its head and landed on Mabel, taking her by surprise and knocking her to the floor. It raised up on its hind limbs to bring a paw full of razor-sharp claws down on her in a vicious rake. Mabel instinctively checked its attack by driving the sharp tips of her hatpins into its abdomen, leaving a pair of puncture wounds that gouted sizzling green blood on her. It keened in pain and rolled away from her, guarding its wounded belly with slavering snaps of its jaws.

The other werewolf crashed into a display case and cartwheeled around, dazed. Dipper laid into it with flying fists, raising blistering welts wherever he managed to land a blow. It tried to circle around him, but he pivoted to always keep his silver-laden fists between the beast and himself. He silently thanked Stan for the boxing tips.

The sound of police sirens filled the air in the jewelry store. The werewolves’ pack hunter instincts overwhelmed their hunger and they tilted their heads back for a chorus of chilling howls, matched pitch to pitch with the wailing sirens.

“It sounds like the cavalry is almost here.” Dipper took advantage of his adversary’s distractedness and connected another pair of punches to the werebeast’s throat. 

Outside, Sheriff Blubs and Deputy Durland stepped out of their car with guns drawn, but the other three werewolves were prowling outside the store and turned on the officers. “Why do the code 12-92s always turn out to be 16-84s?” Blubs asked, the fear rising in his voice as the werewolves approached them growling.

Dipper poked his head up above the window sill. “You guys don’t happen to have silver bullets, do you?”

“The county cut them from the department’s budget last year.” Blubs yelped and jumped as the werewolf snapped as his hindquarters.

The other two werewolves circled Deputy Durland. He kept his handgun pointed at one and a can of mace pointed at the other. “I knew we should’ve called animal control for back-up.”

There was a whoosh and a thump as a cloaked figure landed on the hood of the sheriff’s patrol car in a three-point stance. “Somebody call for back-up?” The line sounded like it was quoted from a superhero movie.

“Hecate!” Mabel shouted in relief. Her wounded adversary, the werewolf with the pink streak, was becoming maddened with pain, devolving into berserk fury.

“Da—Hecate, do you have silver bullets?” Dipper asked over the window sill.

“No, but I can summon something silver. Any requests?” Dana began preparing the spell as one of the werewolves broke off from Durland and snarled at her.

“Anything long and sharp would be good right now.” Dipper dodged a bite and tried to swing a counterpunch.

“Swords it is!” Dana flung a concoction of powders into the air and spoke magic words that made the cloud of particulates shimmer and vibrate. Gleaming silver blades appeared out of the airborne powder and took the form of broadswords flying into the hands of the five humans.

Dipper almost caught his sword, dropped it, then scooped it up, slashing into the blistered werewolf from the floor upward as it swiped at him. It caused the beast to howl and pull back towards the store’s broken front window.

Mabel dropped a hatpin and grabbed her sword out of the air as the berserk pink-streaked werewolf lunged at her. She held it out straight and the beast’s momentum carried it into the sword’s gleaming tip, instantly impaling itself through its shoulder. It slid off the blade, wounds sizzling audibly and leaped onto the window sill and back outside, favoring the bad limb. Dipper’s opponent followed suit, not wanting to contend with the two teens alone.

“Don’t let them get away! Arrest them!” Dana shouted.

“What!?” responded Sheriff Blubs, almost dropping the broadsword he was waving inexpertly at his own growling werewolf. “We don’t want them!”

“Just surround them!”

Dipper and Mabel ran back out onto the sidewalk and helped Dana and the officers corral the snarling supernatural beasts with their silver swords. They forced them into a tight bunch.

“What now?” asked Deputy Durland.

“This!” Dana threw a premixed packet of powder in among the werewolves. It burst in a cloud of blue smoke. The werewolf that had been Leaf bayed one last time, then the five fell unconscious to the ground.

Dana quickly gathered the swords and with an incantation reformed the silver into bindings for the werewolves’ limbs. “That should hold them for now. You’ve got about thirty minutes to get them into a secure cell before they wake up and about forty before the silver turns to dirt.”

Durland leaned against the side of the patrol car in relief. “What did you say your name was again, little missy?”

Dana grinned at him under her mask’s protruding nose. “Call me Hecate. Happy to be of service to the good people of Gravity Falls.”

Mabel laid a hand on Dana’s cloaked shoulder. “Oh, man. I am glad to see you,” she said as she curiously poked her finger through a rip in her sweater. She wasn’t sure if it was from a werewolf or going through either of the broken windows.

“Do you still need me to do up your hair?” the witch joked.

Mabel brushed off the idea with a wave of her hand. “Nah, my date turned out to be a bit of a dog.” She elbowed Dipper, who was untangling necklaces from his hands. “I feel just like that girl from the movies. I’ve dated both a werewolf and a vampire now.”

Dipper regarded her skeptically. “I bet she didn’t have to stab her werewolf though.”

“Nope!” She grinned through a splatter of sizzling green blood on her face.

“Then your love story sounds a lot better to me.” He held up a fist and she bumped him.

Be sure to read the next adventure:

The Ties That Bind


End file.
